Lanka Milk Foods (CWE) PLC vs. B.K.Prabhath Chandrakeerthi, Commissioner General of Labour – CA-WRT-312/2023-2024

In the case between Lanka Milk Foods (CWE) PLC (Plaintiff) and B.K. Prabhath Chandrakeerthi (Commissioner General of Labour) and others (Defendants), the central legal issue concerned whether the decision rejecting the forfeiture of gratuity awarded to the terminated workman was ultra vires and unlawful, and which forum possessed the jurisdiction to assess the forfeiture of gratuity for termination due to fraud and misappropriation. The court determined that the assessment of forfeiture requires legal appraisal by the Labour Tribunal, not by the Commissioner of Labour, under the Payment of Gratuity Act and the Industrial Disputes Act. The challenged decisions (P2 and P16(d)) were quashed, allowing the affected workman to invoke the Labour Tribunal’s jurisdiction to resolve the dispute, rei